Tag: reflective essay

• The Devil and the Drip

  

  Chemo may save your life, but it does not arrive gently. Mine brought nausea, bone pain, hospitalizations, isolation, fear, and the long, unfinished afterlife of survivorship. This is the truth about the terrible bargain of cancer treatment: brutal, necessary, life-saving, and far uglier than most people understand.

  70staples

  March 25, 2026

  Cancer & Chronic Illness, Survival & Recovery

  cancer survivor, chemotherapy, cholangiocarcinoma, medical trauma, reflective essay, scanxiety, survivorship, Whipple procedure

• The Quiet Aftermath

  

  After survival, nobody warns you about the quiet aftermath. The emergency is over, but the maintenance begins: appointments, pills, recalibration, and the strange pressure to seem finished when you are not. This is life in the administrative chapter after crisis. It is not dramatic, but it still counts.

  70staples

  January 31, 2026

  Cancer & Chronic Illness, Survival & Recovery

  chronic aftermath, healing, life after crisis, post-trauma, recovery, reflective essay, Reinvention, survival

• This is Concerning for Malignancy

  

  A chilling message in the patient portal reopened every fear cancer survivors know too well. After abnormal scans and rising tumor markers, I found myself waiting for answers no one wants, trapped between medical caution and memory, while one brutally honest truth kept circling back: cancer still sucks.

  70staples

  January 22, 2026

  Cancer & Chronic Illness, Survival & Recovery

  cancer survivor, cholangiocarcinoma, medical uncertainty, patient portal, recurrence scare, reflective essay, scanxiety, survivorship